A time to stop and play

Last Sunday, my daughter made a very odd request… at 7 pm (considered the oras de peligro) moreso since we just arrived from our nearby province in Pampanga and I was right smack in the middle of getting our Sunday dinner ready… she was holding her ceramic tea-set in her hands and she asked (oh so pitifully) that we play for I haven’t played with her in ages!!! I was quite about ready to brush her off and tell her to go play computers instead with her brother when I stopped, took a step back and told her sweetly to wait a bit until nanay finishes cooking and then we can play…she jumped in glee and I will never exchange that joyful expression in her face for anything else in the world. After a time, I felt she was getting a bit impatient … I was too but I had to let the adobo simmer for awhile… I told her to wash the tiny cups and saucers and even the teensy plates first so it would be clean for us to use real food and drinks in. By the time she was through washing and drying, dinner was ready! And so I had my niece finish up preparing the dinner table… while I set off to play teatime with my daughter. While we were drinking mango juice (not tea) in her teensy cups, and ate mini puto and kutsinta which fit perfectly in her tiny plates, I took advantage of her good mood and fed her dinner (rice and chicken adobo) at the same time. You see this daughter of mine is one very difficult child to feed ---remember that TV commercial with the mom doing all sorts of tricks just to feed her child, well I’ve done all that and so much more… I gave her vitamins and appetite stimulants; made her meals pleasing to the eye; hid carrots and other veggies in omelettes and ground meat patties; fed her milk and cookies and healthy sandwiches as snacks… but she still ends up looking terribly undernourished. So totally unlike her kuya whom we (almost always) had to pry with a crow bar from the dinner table! So I guess the moment she asked me to play teatime with her… I decided to hit two birds with one stone – well, make that three birds – one, I was able to fulfill a little girl’s wish to have a teatime party; second, I was able to feed her dinner without much of a fuss and; third, I was able to spend some precious bonding (and even relaxing!) time with my daughter…something which we might just make a regular habit every weekend.